DOJ: Former Catholic priest convicted of child sex abuse will be deported after sentence

U.S. Department of Justice headquarters building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Bjoertvedt, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 5, 2025 / 13:40 pm (CNA).

A former Catholic priest who was convicted of sexually abusing a minor will be deported back to his native country of Colombia after he serves his time in prison, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). 

Jorge Antonio Velez-Lopez — who has not had any assignments or faculties to serve as a priest since 2010 — pled guilty in 2021 of sexually abusing a minor for whom he had a temporary responsibility of supervising. 

The abuse began in June 2005 when the victim was a teenager, and the sexual relationship continued into her adulthood.

At that time, Velez-Lopez was serving as the girl’s priest at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Columbia, Maryland, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The victim gave birth to the former priest’s child and the two married in 2016 when she was 24 years old. 

Velez-Lopez was sentenced to nine years in prison, which he is currently serving. 

Although the former priest was naturalized as a United States citizen in 2013, he has since been civilly denaturalized and lost his citizenship. A federal judge ruled that he had lied on his application because he asserted that he had never committed a crime for which he had not been arrested despite engaging in long-term sexual abuse of the girl. 

U.S. District Judge Dee Drell sentenced Velez-Lopez to 12 months in prison with credit for time served for passport fraud and ordered that he be removed from the United States.

“This case sends a clear message to individuals who commit any type of sexual offense, particularly those involving children, during the naturalization process — we will ensure that justice is done,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth said in a statement.

According to the DOJ, when Velez-Lopez’s imprisonment is concluded, he will be remanded into the custody of U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Colombia. 

“The [DOJ], ICE, and our other federal law enforcement partners will use every tool in our arsenal to protect children and will prosecute and seek deportation of those who fraudulently obtain U.S. citizenship,” Acting United States Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook said in a statement.

The prosecution of Velez-Lopez for passport fraud was part of ICE’s Operation False Haven, which is a national initiative to to identify and prosecute child molesters and other felons who fraudulently obtain American citizenship, according to the DOJ.

President Donald Trump has made mass deportations a primary goal of his second term in office. He has specifically vowed to target individuals who entered the country illegally and subsequently committed additional crimes while present in the United States.